Sigcaweni is a village situated next to the Mkhaya Game Reserve in the Lubombo Province of Swaziland. The game reserve Fence bisects the community and its traditional lands upon which the community pastured livestock, farmed and fetched firewood and water. The women are using the OBR for justice platform to protest the Game Act, a law passed by government which permits the official game rangers to shoot to kill on sight, anyone they suspect is a poacher if found on the Reserve.
Women still go into the reserve to fetch water (some of their wells are now fenced inside the game reserve) and also to collect firewood. Sometimes their livestock manage to get into the game reserve and they go in to rescue them. Because of this law many homesteads in the village of Sigcaweni are headed by children because their mothers and or fathers have been shot and killed on the Reserve. This has led to the abuse of these vulnerable children also.
